Necta's Inferno
by Reada Read-a-Lot
Summary: Necta, an orphaned changeling is determined from a young age to be a soldier, thinking that is the only way to escape the Hive. Even if it is only for a little while on their crusades for love, the life blood of the Swarm. Little does she know she will pay the price for her desire. There will be battles to be fought, friends to gain or lose, regrets to face, and love to endure.
1. The Nursery

"Necta, I'm gonna be a solider when I grow up. I'm gonna fight for the hive, bring as much love as I can back." The young changeling whistled as he jumped from his hexagonal-shaped sleeping pod, neighboring Necta's nursery pod.

"Well, I wanted to be a solider first, Thorrin. You can't copy me." Necta tried to copy Thorrin's jump, but landed on her face. Disappointment and embarrassment flooded her body, drowning out the little pain she felt it had looked so easy when he had done it.

Thorrin laughed as he pulled Necta up, "No you can't be a solider, you're gonna have to be a breeder, a caretaker, or a miner."

"Says who, Thorrin?"

"Genetics and the Spirit of Honor says so, Necta. Your mum and pop are miners, so you will probably be a miner as well."

"They were miners, Thorrin. They died a couple months ago."

"Oh, so when it is your Meeting Day you won't have anyone to meet?"

"Yeah," Necta hangs her head and draw in the sand that covered the floor of the nursery floor. A thought crossed her mind and she immediately perked up. "That means that I should be able to pick my own destiny, right?"

"I don't think that's how it works Necta." Thorrin said a meditative frown on his face. The frown changed to one of mischief, "Besides, fillies don't make the best soldiers."

"Well then, I'll just have to be better than you." Necta squealed as she pounced on Thorrin in a tangle of hooves. Other changelings watched and cheered them on. Even the caretaker watched, but she was silent.

Thorrin had found a way to twist her body in a way that was uncomfortable which made Necta cry out in surprise. She nearly wriggled out of his strong grip, and was about to make a blow to Thorrin's head when the caretaker stepped in. She towered over the two changelings sprawled out on the floor, and was very intimidating, so they stopped and looked to the floor.

"What did you learn today, my little changelings?" the caretaker clicked loudly enough to echo through the large nursery.

"We learned that girls aren't good fighters, Nanny Rymie," one of the changeling colts at the front of the room replied, smirking in Necta's direction, causing her cheeks to go red hot.

"That is incorrect Screamer, but it is an acute point. Does anyone else have any ideas about what we might have learned today?" No other changeling dared to speak up, and each cowered in their pod as her eyes swept the nursery. She then returned her gaze to the Necta and Thorrin, "I'll tell you what you need to have learned, because this lesson is very important if you are to survive in the Swarm. The castes are in place for a reason. It helps us achieve more, to get more done, and everyone is a part of their certain caste for a reason. They know what is good for the Swarm. Thorrin, you were able to win this fight because you are the Commander's son. Even though you don't know anything about fighting yet, you are still able to beat changelings who don't have commanders or soldiers as parents."

"While Necta, you lost because your parents were miners and didn't have any family members in the Spirit of Honor who were soldiers to give you those skills needed. Another reason that you lost is because you are angry. Most warrior changelings are able to feed off of fear or anger, as well as the love we need so much. The fact that you have so much anger is because you can't feed off of it."

Necta stopped looking down at her hooves and met her caretaker's eyes. Her nanny's eyes didn't have any light in it whatsoever, no feeling showed itself there. It showed that she didn't feel anything for Necta. She was just saying what she was required to say to separate the changelings even more.

"It is going to be hard, I know that, but I will be a soldier. You forget to mention how I almost escaped Thorrin's grasp and punched him. There is something I am sure my ancestors in the Spirit of Honor gave me, determination, and, Nanny Rymie, I am extra determined to become a soldier. Even if in the end it kills me." She hissed the last part loudly, Nanny Rymie's eyes started to show some emotion, they showed fear.

Necta happened to look in Thorrin's direction; his gaze averted downwards towards his hooves when she turned her head, but in the brief glimpse she received he looked scared as well, but also a little curious. This shocked Necta. She could cause other changeling's to fear her. Why would they have reason to fear her?

"Necta, go and sit in your pod, and think about what you said, and did, if you ever have thoughts like that again in this hive, things will not go well for you," Nanny Rymie whispered, but the whisper soon turned in to a near inaudible hiss, "Be careful who hears your rants in the future. They could be the end you."

When Necta returned to her pod, she did think, but not about what Nanny Rymie had said. She instead pondered her caretaker's last hiss. For what reason would her words be the end of her?

* * *

_"This nymph is uncontrollable, Your Highness. Something must be done to stop her, limit her, something. She is much too dangerous. She is full of dangerous thoughts and dangerous ideas."_

_"This is why when she asks, you will let her in, commander."_ The other changeling opened his mouth as if to speak, but Queen Chrysalis cut him off. _"If she joins the army, her dangerous thoughts will start to diminish, that is if you work her so hard she doesn't have any time to think at all. Also you will be able to have someone keep an eye on her that is if you don't keep an eye on her yourself. I'm sure you are familiar with the term 'keep your enemies close'."_

_"Indeed I am, Your Highness. The other Hives in the Swarm though, wouldn't they laugh at us. Wouldn't they start to doubt our ability to perform and challenge our authority as the Head Hive?"_

_"Yes, they will. So you have to make sure she is one of the best, that way they won't challenge us after they see her in action. I have full confidence that she will be able to do it. You are, after all, the best commander in the history of changeling commanders."_

_"Some changelings just aren't cut out for being a soldier, Your Highness, can you be one hundred percent sure that she will make the cut?"_ Commander Sting looked down at the screen of Nanny Rymie's memories, the fight scene and Necta's speech playing over and over again.

Nanny Rymie came after making sure all the nymphs fell asleep to report what had happened. She couldn't remember everything herself so she had asked to have it extracted so that they could see it, and she was right to do so. He would not have believed Necta's behavior if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes on the screen of the extracted memory.

"_Oh she will, Commander Sting, she will. Her determination reminds me of mine when I was a nymph, I was determined I would bring many of the hives together and be Queen over all of them, and didn't I do just that Commander?"_

_"You did, Your Highness. You did."_

_"Then she will be fine, and will do her very best to prove herself in our society."_

* * *

Thorrin waited until Nanny Rymie had left the nursery before he slipped over to Necta's pod. When he could see Necta's form in the back of her pod he spoke up, "Necta, I think you could do it, if you wanted to. You're right; if you are determined enough you could be a soldier. I'll talk to my dad the Commander until he says you can join."

"Thanks Thorrin. I appreciate it."

Thorrin's hind hooves slipped on the rungs of the ladder and he held even tighter to the rungs his front hooves were attached too. Necta saw this and asked, "Do you wanna come in?"

Thorrin scrambled in and landed on top of Necta, potentially squashing her.

His cheeks flushed red as he heard Necta's shrill laughter from underneath him, "Hey Bugbrain, could ya get off?"

He quickly regained his composure and shifted slightly, causing Necta to laugh more, "Maybe if you beg for mercy, Ladybug."

He felt Necta shift under him and was surprised when he bumped his head against the roof of the pod as she pushed him off. The next thing he knew Necta was standing over him, her wispy dark blue hair touching his nose, her burnt vanilla scent was all that he could smell, as she said, "I'll never beg for mercy Bugbrain."

Thorrin was forced to look into Necta's eyes for the first time, they were a lighter shade of blue than her hair, but they were still dark, her light pupils flickered with dancing light that didn't come from the room they, and he grinned. "We are partners even through the end. We are soldiers who do stumble, but stay strong because we lean on each other."

"Did you just make that up?"

"Yeah."

"You don't rhyme all that well, and so far, the only things we have done are cause each other to stumble and fight."

"Well, then. We are going to have to do something about that, aren't we?"

Necta nodded and grinned.

* * *

Reada's Note: I borrowed some concepts and characters from other authors here and I'd like to acknowledge them.

My friend AlphaTheGriffin17 owns Commander Sting. He is from Alpha's book Warring Dusk. By the way this story will be pre Warring Dusk, during Warring Dusk, and post Warring Dusk.

Link: s/9588920/1/Warring-Dusk

Thorrin's name and how he is at the moment is me, but AutoBrony41 helped me develop him a bit more by RPing him.

Hasbro owns Queen Chrysalis and the concept of changelings in the first place.

The culture of this story is mostly based on Changelings- A Comprehensive Guide to Changeling Society by Thyrisom

Link: s/8630335/1/Changelings-A-Comprehensive-Guide-to-Changeling-Society.

And then of course there is you... the reader. You took time out of your day to read this story, and it probably didn't take you that long to read it, but I appreciate the fact that you did.

Feel free to leave a comment... what do I think this is, Facebook? Let me start again.

Please feel free to leave a review commenting on things you noticed, even if it is mistakes in my grammar, because I am always (even when I'm not) in the mood to improve. :3


	2. Rumble and Roar

_A low rumble vibrated throughout the hive, which caused Necta to stir. One of her forehoofs and her head draped out of her pod's opening, so when drool dripped from the corner of her mouth it landed on an unfortunate nymph below._

_The sound became more intense, to the point that it became tangible and shook the entire nursery. Necta's eyes shot open and she tried to regain her balance, but by then gravity had won over her body and she made an ungraceful descent to the quaking ground below and continued to do so for a hundred of Necta's quickened heartbeats and then quieted._

_All was silent. The only thing that Necta heard was her heart rate as it slowed and her body as it quivered. _

_Necta freed herself from her fear stood up and breathed deeply, many scents from the room crashed in. There was the familiar stench of fear, which seemed to be everywhere and in everyone. The fear was laced with worry in the older changelings, and was peppered with curiosity in a few of the younger nymphs, including herself. In her one year of life she hadn't felt anything like that before and was wondering why the Earth quaked. _

_Necta inhaled and smelt something new and wanted to inched closer to the hexagonal entryway to the tunnel leading to the rest of the hive. At any moment she was sure that a nanny would come along and stop her, her large body blocking up the entire walkway. Because of this fear she didn't dare enter the tunnel, but rather stood close enough to it that she was sure she could sense what she had gone on out there was just too much for the baby changeling to take in._

_There was the faint, but unmistakable scent of blood. The sweet, metallic smell of a changeling's liquid life. There was also the sour and sharp scent of sadness, and the sharp spiciness of , there were always so many more scents out there, many of which she didn't know. It was the scents she didn't know that scared Necta the most. They were something deeper than fear, deeper than sadness, deeper than all the emotions she knew. She desperately wanted to jump in her sleeping pod and forget everything, but something about the unknown drew her further into the nursery tunnel._

_Most of the nymphs who had woken to the sound had fallen back asleep, but one kept his eyes on her and watched her every move, but he remained silent. _

_It took forty of her steps before she reached the other end of the tunnel, but then she hesitated. Whatever was out there could be scary, maybe it was a big and terrible beast of some sort that made the hive shake. The guards had nearly fought it off, but it would be right outside the nursery entrance and would gobble her right up if it saw her._

_Necta shook her head at the nonsense of it all. Whatever it was would be different from anything she had ever experienced before, but it couldn't be a monster like her wild imangination had thought. She took a deep breath and left the dark tunnel which led to safety and entered the unknown hive beyond. It blinded her, there was so much light. It suffocated her there was so much air and many new smells, but Necta loved it. _

_That was when she heard the wailing. She ran the twenty steps to the railing that blockaded the hole in the center of the hive and did her best to look down, towards the sound that disturbed the quiet hissing of other changelings. _

_"Let me through, please, my husband is down there in the mines, you must let me through." Necta easily found the female changeling making the spectacle and watched as a stoic guard continued to hold his ground against her._

_The guard said something in a hushed tone, but while he clicked, the other changeling snuck around him and into the cave. "No wait, stop!" The guard yelped as he flew after her, trying to stop her, but the earth grumbled again. _

_Necta watched helplessly and screamed inaudibly as the opening of the cave collapsed and sealed the two changelings in. Necta would have covered her eyes at that moment, but didn't need to, for the everything around her was swallowed by a darkness until she too was completely enwrapped in it, but she wasn't scared. It was just a dream, and like any of her other dreams once it went dark the door out opened up._

_All her senses were heightened as she headed out as they usually were after a dream like that. That was the only reason she heard the small faint voice of someone in the land of dreams. "THAT'S RIGHT NECTA, LEAVE THIS DREAM, BUT DON'T FORGET IT. YOU HAVE TO FORGET TO WAKE UP_."

So Necta did, but when she opened her eyes, a different pair loomed right above her, which caused her to shriek and hit her head on the ceiling of her sleeping pod. The eyes vanished, but she heard the chirpy laughter of another changeling and she flew out of her pod and landed in front of the changeling as he laughed.

"Don't you have anything better to do than antagonize a sleeping changeling, Screamer?" she tapped her front hoof against his head, and tried give the rolling changeling a stern look, which was hard because he hiccuped in between his laughter, reminding her of the times when Thorrin laughed so hard he did the exact same thing, and a grin grew from her scowl.

Screamer was a teaser, always trying to get a laugh in even if it was at the expense of another changeling's feelings, but Necta didn't mind. He was like family to her, a little brother of sorts, even though he was bigger than her in size and he was stronger than her, but she was a few days his senior, and just hadn't fully grown yet. "Nope, and you don't have anything better to do except to sleep through a good chunk of our Spirit's class... again." Screamer clicked in between laughs, hiccups, and gasping for breath.

Necta's half scowl, half grin turned to a look of terror, "Oh, no, this is going to be my third tardy to his class. Mr. Buzzlehum always gives the worst consequences for skipping any of his classes. Last time, he gave Cricket, dung duty."Screamer stopped laughing, "Yeah, he always gives the worst jobs to us orphans, come on let's go." He jumped up and started to fly towards the nursery entrance, Necta a couple wingbeats behind.

They flew through the corriders, Necta was a few wing beats ahead. Of course that was only because she passed him at a sharp turn earlier. She was just better at the turns than she was. She passed a clock and then looked over her shoulder her shoulder to see that they were going to be ten minutes late to the Spirit lesson, and she was going to pay dearly for it.

"Halt, no fast flying in the corridors you two." Great, and now they had a hall moniter on their tails.

"We're sorry sir, we accidentally slept in and are incredibly late to Mr. Buzzlehum's class, sir." Screamer said as Necta did her best to keep her long mane from falling in her eyes as she hovered, but she couldn't help but feel that the soldier was somehow familiar.

"I remember having Mr. Buzzlehum's class for a while until my father agreed to let me stop going; he gave me this hallway patrol job instead. He never did agree with Buzzlehum's teachings anyway," the guard boasted, in a very familiar way. Only one changeling she knew clicked in that way.

"Thorrin, is that you?" Necta finally got tired of hovering and landed, moving her mane out of the way better so she could see him without the tendrils obscuring her vision.

"The one and only, well, I'm technically the fourth Thorrin in my family on my mother's side, but yeah, it's me. Took ya long enough, didn't it Necta? I knew it wa-" He would have kept talking if Necta hadn't moved to embrace her friend whom she hadn't seen in a long while, almost two years.

"Thorrin, huh? I should have guessed it because you were a bit smaller than me, it's good to see yah," he moved to brohoof Thorrin, but was left hanging as Thorrin returned Necta's hug. Necta thought she smelt some hurt and jealousy, but it was gone before she could trust her nose.

She couldn't help but feel safe in her friend's embrace, and she lost track of time. It was Screamer's restlessness that made her come back to reality, "It was swell seeing you again Thorrin, but we really must get going, otherwise Mr. Buzzlehum is going to have our heads." It was then that she realized that other changelings were looking at them and walking about, class must have finished.

"That is a fairly accurate statement, for you, Miss Necta." The familiar voice of Mr. Buzzlehum echoed through the corridor, and the crowd parted, letting the older changeling through."You three, into my classroom now." His eyes darted between the three class skipping changelings, almost as if daring one of them to move first.

"I guess I'll be seeing you later Necta, Screamer," Thorrin chirped as he started to walk away, either oblivious to Mr. Buzzlehum's commands, or ignoring them.

"Excuse me Mr. Thorrin, clearly you did not understand this simple math equation, . If you leave there will only be two changelings, and I commanded that three changelings enter my classroom. Do you understand?" Necta looked closely at Mr. Buzzlehum and noticed that smoke seemed to be rolling from his nostrils.

"Yes sir," Thorrin usual chirp seemed closer to a hiss, but he walked to Mr. Buzzlehum's stoicly anyhow.

Buzzlehum whipped around to look at Necta and Screamer, but as soon as he was about to say something, Necta stalked silently to the classroom, and Screamer followed close behind.

* * *

"Thorrin, what is the meaning of this?" Commander Sting growled as he waved the letter from Mr. Buzzlehum and then impaled it with one of his hoofblades, which Thorrin shied away from, for he knew that when his father was angry...angrier than usual, terrible things could happen.

"I come home from a long expedition and I find that my son, my own flesh and blood, has to 'help with the preparations for the Day of Honor'? Those are the priests' and orphans' duties, not the duty of the son of the living Commander." He hissed as he took off his other hoof blade so that he could impale it through the letter as well.

"Sting dearest, I know you're upset with Thorrin, but that is no reason to take it out on the table, that took a weeks worth of jewels to buy." Thorrin's mother, Riza, came in to the apartment and wasn't fazed with her husband's behavior, and only looked mildly upset that her prized table had a hoofblade in it.

She had her saddlebag on and there were flowers overflowing from it, obviously a welcome home present from her to... well, herself. His father was hard to please, and the only thing that seemed to please him was when Thorrin and Riza were happy.

The Commander dislodged his hoof blade from the table and gave his wife a quick kiss, an action that disgusted Thorrin even when he was younger. "I am not upset with Thorrin, Riza. I am upset with Buzzlehum." Sting gestured wildly at nothing in particular. The note was still attached to his father's hoofblade. Thorrin's father hissed quietly, trying to surpress his anger, "He thinks he can just go and order around my son, MY son, to help with preparations for the Day of Honor," his anger still showed through his tightened jaw and his inflamed eyes.

Thorrin watched as his mother fed off of some of his anger, which calmed the commander slightly. "He isn't supposed to help prepare it, he is supposed to partake in it, give an offering, but he is not to stoke the fire, or douse the Stone of Spirits with incense or whatever it is they do with that stone."

Thorrin despised it when his parents, or anyone for that matter, talked about him as if he weren't there in the same room with them, but they did it often so Thorrin had learned to cope.

"Here, may I see this dear?" Riza bent down and pulled the note off of Sting's hoofblade, and quickly read it.

"Sting, this was signed by the queen herself. I don't think you can clear this one with just Buzzlehum." She showed it to Sting, who pored over it again.

Thorrin looked down at his hooves as his father reread the note. Mr, Buzzlehum had indeed taken them down to the queen, not because what he did was so jurastically wrong, but because Mr. Buzzlehum AND Thorrin wanted his father to heed Mr. Buzzlehum in this one instance, but Thorrin's reasoning for wanting to go was different than Mr. Buzzlehum's. They were in the courtroom for a total of three minutes, but he hadn't been scared because Necta had been beside him the entire time, even though she didn't have to be.

Thorrin looked up to see the door slamming behind his father, he was either going to Mr. Buzzlehum or to the queen to revoke this assignment, and Thorrin prayed to the Spirits that the Queen and Mr. Buzzlehum stood their ground. He didn't want to lose this chance to be with Necta again.


End file.
